“Clinton sighed and gave up. All his life he had given up. He didn’t know why it was like that; why a man who wanted nothing but to live honestly and industriously and usefully — who, briefly, asked only the privileges of giving and helping — had had to compromise and surrender at every turn. But that was the way it had been, and that was apparently the way it was to be.”

                     --Jim Thompson, The Getaway, 1958

“AND THERE, AGELESS SERENITY SHATTERS, SPLINTERED BY THE SOFT SCRABBLE OF FINGERNAILS CLAWING CLAY–AND BY A SUDDEN ERUPTION OF SCRAWNY HANDS THRUSTING SKYWARD. BODIES FOLLOW, CARCASSES YELLOW IN ROT, WHOSE INNARDS COIL WITH NESTS OF SLITHERING THINGS. AND THUS DO THEY RISE, SWAYING LIKE CARELESS MARIONETTES–UNTIL SLOWLY, LEAVING A TRAIL LITTERED WITH SCRAPS OF THEMSELVES, THEY SHUFFLE FORWARD–UNITED BY THE STRENGTH OF THEIR SINGULAR PURPOSE.”

                     --David Michelinie, IRON MAN, Vol. 1, No. 150, 
                             "Knightmare" 1981